


if, one day

by yeastlings



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Birthday Party, Ducks, Emotional Constipation, Emotionally Constipated Sakusa Kiyoomi, Farmer Kita Shinsuke, Food, Implied Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu - Freeform, Implied Ojiro Aran/Miya Osamu, M/M, Meaningful conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26060944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeastlings/pseuds/yeastlings
Summary: Sakusa Kiyoomi visits a rice farm, meets some ducklings, and talks to Kita Shinsuke, who may or may not know the secrets of the universe.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61





	if, one day

**Author's Note:**

> For Claire, who gave me this brainworm.

Kiyoomi didn’t like the outdoors. He didn’t have anything against it. Obviously, if there was an indoors and things that belonged there, there had to be an outdoors and things that belonged _there_. He didn’t like things that belonged outdoors. They were often messy, hard to predict and control—like the weather, for example.

“But, Omi-san, you can predict the weather,” Hinata said, eyes wide. “That’s what the weather forecaster does on the news.”

Atsumu, who was walking a little behind them—why did he always have to tail Hinata like a dog with separation anxiety?—snorted.

Kiyoomi would not dignify him with even a glare. He stared straight ahead, pulling down the brim of his hat in a vain attempt to deflect the glaring sunlight. “I know what a weather forecaster is, Hinata. The problem is that their predictions are inaccurate more often than not.”

“Okay, I get that. But it’s not their fault, you know. Even if it’s a science and all, how are you supposed to predict something like nature? Personally I think that’s the beauty of it.”

“Of course you do,” Kiyoomi muttered. Hinata loved the outdoors. He loved beach volleyball, which involved far too much sand, wind, and shirtless people for Kiyoomi’s taste.

So why was Kiyoomi here, in the countryside of Hyogo prefecture, visiting a rice farm of all things?

The official reason was because Inarizaki’s old club captain had invited his former teammates to a birthday celebration for his grandmother. Apparently, he’d said it was okay to bring friends along: his grandmother loved having company, and she was especially taken with her grandson’s pro volleyball friends.

To nobody’s surprise, Atsumu had invited Hinata and Bokuto. To everybody’s surprise, he’d also invited Kiyoomi. Kiyoomi suspected that it was Hinata’s doing. He’d pulled Atsumu aside in the locker room and started whispering urgently to him, and after making a disgruntled expression, Atsumu had walked up to Kiyoomi and said, “So. Ya wanna come, too?”

Kiyoomi meant to say no. He really did. But Hinata was beaming at him from behind Atsumu, and his other teammates were staring with bated breath like this was the cliffhanger of a primetime drama, so he’d ended up saying, “Fine. I mean, yes. As long as the party is actually inside a building.”

Thankfully it was, though there were far too many windows open for Kiyoomi to be comfortable. He had to concede that as there were a lot of people present, open windows were better than closed. The house itself was simple but extremely neat and clean. Kiyoomi was perfectly content sitting in a corner by himself, but then Inarizaki’s old club captain—Kita Shinsuke, that was his name—asked if anyone would like to take a look around his farm, and several hands shot up.

“No,” Kiyoomi said, as soon as Motoya walked up to him with sparkling eyes.

“He has ducks,” Motoya announced. “Like, hundreds of them.”

Tempting, but Kiyoomi still would have refused if Osamu hadn’t said, “Omi-kun, if ya stick around I’m gonna make ya help me with the food. Y’know, like handlin’ raw meat and stuff.”

Kiyoomi stood up. “Okay. But I’m not going anywhere near the mud.”

In the end, only Aran stayed behind with Osamu and Kita’s grandmother. Kiyoomi got the feeling that it was more about spending time with Osamu than actually helping him, but that wasn’t any of his business. He followed Kita and everyone else down a concrete path until they reached the rice paddies.

The paddies were fenced off with stakes and green netting; over the top, fishing lines criss crossed. “It’s to protect the ducklings from crows,” Kita explained. “When they’re bigger it won’t be a problem, but right now they’re easy prey for anythin’.”

He went on to explain how the ducklings eliminated the need for chemical pesticides by eating weeds and other pests. Only Kiyoomi really paid attention. Everyone else was too busy crouching next to the fence and cooing at every duckling that paddled past.

As he observed the ducklings from a safe distance (he could admit that they were cute, but who knew what germs lurked between those fluffy brown feathers?), a question occurred to him. He turned to Kita. “What happens to their waste? Does it just…stay there?”

Kita blinked. “Well, yeah. Where else would it go?”

Kiyoomi wrinkled his nose and Kita chuckled.

“It’s fertilizer, y’know. All natural, too, ‘cause everythin’ they eat comes straight from these paddies. Ya can think of it like recyclin’.”

Kiyoomi wanted to point out that reycling didn’t involve bodily excretions, but then Kita might laugh at him again. Even though his laughter hadn’t been mean, it made Kiyoomi feel a little foolish. What else was fertilizer made out of than waste? And like Kita said, at least they knew exactly what had gone into this particular fertilizer.

“It’s…efficient,” he said. “Everything has a purpose that aids the process.”

“It’s proper. Doesn’t hurt the plants, doesn’t hurt the environment. Doesn’t hurt my back, either, now that I don’t hafta do the weeding myself.”

Judging from the broadness of his shoulders, Kita still did a fair amount of physical labor. Kiyoomi found his gaze lingering a little too long on the muscles there, and on the back of his neck where sweat was beginning to bead.

“Kiyoomi, look! Doesn’t that one look just like Tora?” Motoya was pointing at one of the ducklings, indistinguishable from the rest.

Kiyoomi tore his gaze away to study the duckling in question. “I don’t even remember what Tora looks like.”

“He definitely looks like him.”

“ _You_ don’t even remember what he looks like.”

Motoya rolled his eyes and turned back to the ducklings. Kita raised an eyebrow. “Who’s Tora?”

“A pet duck we used to have. I’m pretty sure he was a domestic duck because he had yellow feathers.”

“Ah, right. Rintarou said yer cousins. It must be fun playin’ volleyball at such a high level with someone you know well.”

People said that to Kiyoomi all the time. He didn’t know if he would describe playing volleyball with Motoya as fun, but neither would he call it bad. “It’s lucky, that’s all,” he said. “Since we work well together. I don’t know if being related has anything to do with that, though.”

“Hmmm. What happened to Tora?”

“He died. It was old age, nothing tragic.”

“Still, it musta been sad for you and Komori-kun. If it was old age ya probably took good care of him.”

Tora had technically been Motoya’s pet, but Kiyoomi had spent so much time at his house that it felt like Tora was his, too. He remembered reading articles on how to raise ducks, asking Motoya’s parents for plywood so they could construct a shelter for Tora, saving fruit and vegetable trimmings to add to his pellet mash for extra nutrition.

“He was healthy right up until the very end. I made a grave for him.”

Motoya cried over it every day at first, and even Kiyoomi felt a twinge whenever he saw it. But eventually Tora became a fond memory, and when they talked about him they talked about things like how he’d terrorized the neighbor’s dog.

“What happens to the ducks once you harvest the rice?” Kiyoomi asked.

“Some we keep for the egg production, and the rest we sell for the meat.”

It was the logical conclusion, yet somehow Kiyoomi hadn’t expected it. “You don’t keep them for the next season?”

“Nope. Too big, ya see. We use ducklings ‘cause they’re just the right size for the rice seedlings when they’re transplanted.”

At the fence, Motoya and everyone else were still cooing over the ducks’ antics. It sounded like Motoya and Hinata had even started naming them. Kiyoomi frowned. What was the point? They weren’t pets; they were a useful tool, and eventually they would end up on someone’s dinner table.

“Ya take everythin’ real serious, don’tcha, Sakusa-kun?”

Kiyoomi stared at Kita, a little taken aback at the sudden change in topic. “Why would you say that?”

“Just now you were thinkin’, ‘Isn’t it silly of them to name the ducklings if they’re just gonna be food’?”

Kiyoomi gaped. Atsumu had mentioned that his old club captain was a frightening individual, but Kiyoomi had chalked it up to his immaturity. “How did you know?”

“It was kinda written all over your face.”

Kita shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, surveying the rice paddies spread out before them. “Y’know, I get where yer cousin and Hinata-kun are coming from. I’m not in the habit of naming my ducks, but when ya spend a whole season with ‘em, you can’t help but feel attached. They’re smarter than ya think, and they’ve got their individual quirks.”

Kiyoomi’s brow furrowed. That was a nice speech, but he didn’t understand how they’d gotten onto the topic of duckling habits. “…I don’t mean to be rude, but what was the point of all that?”

Kita shook his head, laughing. “Hmm, I dunno! Sometimes I get carried away with the speeches. You could say that I take things real serious, too. But, well, I guess what I was tryin’ to say is that sometimes feelings just happen. Like Aran-kun once said, folks don’t need reasons to feel the way they feel. If it makes ya happy, then it makes ya happy. No need to think about how practical it is, or how long it’ll last.”

Much as he hated to admit it, Kiyoomi was beginning to understand why Atsumu was skittish around Kita. The man talked like he’d been let in on secrets about the universe while everyone else remained ignorant. Kiyoomi suspected that they hadn’t been talking about Tora or the ducklings but about him in general, and that made him feel strangely exposed.

Kita seemed wholly unconcerned about his predicament. He clapped his hands and rounded everyone up so they could return and get the party started. As they trooped back to the house, Motoya nudged Kiyoomi’s arm and said, “Admit it, you’re happy you came along.”

Kiyoomi stared at Kita, who was walking ahead of them and talking to a nervous-looking Atsumu. His lips curled into a smile, surprisingly sly; maybe he wasn’t as serious and proper as he’d claimed to be. Kiyoomi wanted to figure him out, for no other reason than that he’d already gotten started on it.

“I suppose,” he said to an expectant Motoya. “It wasn’t that bad, after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from TWICE's "What is Love?" 
> 
> [Here is the art of Kita with ducks](https://twitter.com/elusive_elisa/status/1296939850126434305?s=20) that made Claire say "What if Sakusa visits Kita to see the ducklings?" This is how I learned that ducks are an organic way to keep rice paddies pest free, and if you need to know one thing about me it's that I go absolutely feral for anything related to permaculture and sustainability. So. Yeah. Here it is.
> 
> [find me on twitter](https://twitter.com/ninetalesk)


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